Page 61 of Caretaker

“I am not—”

I shot out my hand, grabbed her throat, and squeezed. “I’m not leaving without him.”

Her eyes widened and she clutched my hand but made no attempt to pull it away. “And if I won’t?” Her voice was breathless and her pulse pounded against my fingers.

I put my face close to hers. “You will.”

Finally, she shrugged. “Fine. You can borrow him. You can’t take him from me. It’s not possible.”

“No, it isn’t,” I agreed. But we both knew if she hadn’t held him by force, Clayton would not have been hers.

“Then I will lend him to you. I’m not worried. But if you don’t have him back before dawn, I’ll call him home. Do you know what will happen to him if I call and he can’t come?”

I followed her down the hallway, my heart pounding. “No, Miriam.” I wondered if my voice sounded as hollow to her as it did to me.

“If he’s in cuffs, he will gnaw off his own arms to free himself. If he’s locked in a cell, he will smash his body into a bloody, broken piece of meat to escape. No matter where he is or what he’s doing, when I call, he will come.”

And then she shoved open the door at the end of the hallway and had Rhys not been there to catch me, I would have collapsed to the floor.

He held me too tightly, and when I looked up at him, his eyes were as horrified as I knew mine had to be.

“Rhys,” I murmured.

He was unable to tear his stare from the scene inside the room. “What?”

“We were both wrong.”

He looked at me, finally. “About what?”

“She’s not one of us. And I am a killer.”

I would talk to Clayton. If he wanted to die, I’d give that to him. And I’d kill Miriam to do it.

Miriam walked farther into the room, trailing her fingers over various ugly pieces of equipment and furniture. She glanced over her shoulder, once, proud. “Well, come on, then. He’s all yours.” Then she waggled her finger. “But only for tonight.”

“That’s all I’ll need,” I said.

And finally, I allowed myself to really look at Clayton.

Miriam’s golem. Her slave. The object of more hatred than I could conceive of. Even my hatred of Amias, after what he’d done to my family and to me, could not touch Miriam’s. And there was a very good reason for that.

She was a crazy motherfucking monster.

I’d wanted to like her. I’d pitied her. I’d felt a strange sort of responsibility for her, and I’d been grateful when she’d defended and protected me.

But now that I was being force fed her depravity, her horrible cruelty, I could no longer hide from the truth. I would have to kill her. She did not deserve to live, and Clayton, no matter what he’d done, did not deserve to suffer.

No one did. Not that much.

“He can’t die,” Miriam said, staring at Clayton. “Not really. I kill him, I bring him back. Over and over. You’d think I’d get bored, but all I have to do is look over there, and I am no longer soft.”

I glanced at the wall of pictures to which she pointed. Enlarged, framed photographs of a little blonde girl and a tall, smiling man. Some of them were black and white, some a faded dull color, some of them sepia. In every one of them, Miriam was as grim and unsmiling as her father was laughing and happy.

Clayton moaned, his voice a crawling, wet thing, and I strode toward him. I slipped in a blob of congealed blood, but Rhys was there to steady me.

How could a person survive so much torture and not be driven mad? I didn’t know. Maybe it wasn’t possible. Maybe he was as mad as Miriam but better at hiding it.

Miriam slid her gaze to me. “Sometimes I get carried away. I’ll fix him up before you take him.”